


Words Unspoken [The Courting in the Kitchen Reverb]

by theladyscribe



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 21:57:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1565462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theladyscribe/pseuds/theladyscribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jayne's rules for courting women are simple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Words Unspoken [The Courting in the Kitchen Reverb]

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SRoni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SRoni/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Words Unspoken](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/48197) by SRoni. 



Jayne's rules for courting women are simple.

1\. Always have a weapon on your body within easy reach. Preferably more than one.  
2\. Never, ever, ever take advantage of a girl. If she’s had a swallow of liquor and you’re not falling down drunk, absolutely nothing will happen.  
2a. If a girl says no, it means no.  
2b. If she says yes, but actually means no, it’s still a no. Nothing will happen if it’s a no.  
3\. Never kiss a girl on the mouth.

 

Jing-lin Corazon is the prettiest girl in town, but her brothers are the meanest, ugliest sons of bitches on the entire moon, and not a one of Jayne's schoolmates are brave enough to ask her to the barn-raising, let alone to court her.

She's got eyes for Jayne, though, makes that pretty clear when she takes his hand and pulls him around the back of the pens where they're keeping the show animals for the fair. He ain't sure what to expect, but it surely isn't her tugging at his belt before he's even kissed her.

"You sure about this?" he asks, more to distract himself than anything.

Jing-lin gives him a wicked grin. "Quite sure, Jayne Cobb."

She's got a hand on him and she's slipped her tongue in his mouth when she's roughly pulled away from him.

Huan punches him in the gut before he's got his pants done up, and there's a shout from Jing-lin to leave him alone. Jayne takes a knee, trying to protect himself while he reaches for the knife he keeps in his boot.

"You don't wanna fight me, Huan," he says, spitting blood and rising, flashing his knife.

"You leave my sister alone, Cobb. She's too good for you."

Jayne glances back at Jing-lin. She's got a little smile on her face, like she's getting pleasure from watching this exchange. She licks her lips, and sudden-like, Jayne don't see her as pretty any more.

"Whatever you say, Huan." He walks away.

*

He's with the Miller gang for a time, running weapons between New Hearst and Kane. It ain't a bad gig, makes more than enough dough to send money back to his ma so his sisters can buy their Sunday dresses.

He's young, still growing into his body, still a sight unattractive because his legs ain't caught up to his arms yet. If he were honest (and Jayne is never honest), he looks a bit like a gorilla and feels a lot like one, too. Maybe that's why Fitz Miller takes him to the whore house on Kane after their latest successful run.

The girls there are pretty enough, more than one calling to mind some of the girls he used to kiss at the fair back home. Fitz tells him to take his pick, and Jayne shrugs. He never much cared for paying for something that should be freely given. He's got his ma to thank for that bit of moral high ground, can hear her disappointment in him from halfway across the 'verse. There's a reason she thinks he's in mercantile shipping, and it ain't to fool the Federation mail scanners.

Fitz gets exasperated at his hesitation and picks for him, shoving a glaze-eyed girl at him and pushing the two of them into a private room.

The girl is shaking visibly, and she looks younger than Elsie, his baby sister who's just turned fifteen. Jayne peers at her, her eyes definitely clouded with rotgut if not something stronger.

"What'll it be?" She slurs a bit, and her fingers fumble when she reaches for the ties on her robe.

He sighs at her and says, "Have a seat, girlie. I ain't interested in taking you to bed."

She stares mutely at him for a full minute before she gingerly sits beside him, a confused frown making her look even younger than she already does.

"You got a name?"

"Lee."

Jayne nods. "You got a deck of cards?"

*

Simon and River take their leave of _Serenity_ about a year after they bring the Alliance to its knees with the Reavers and Miranda. Jayne expects Kaylee will be insufferably sad now that the doctor's gone, but inside of a week, she's all smiles again.

When he asks what's got her so chipper, she just laughs and says, "The 'verse is a beautiful place, Jayne."

He frowns. "You ain't sad the doc's left?"

Kaylee shrugs and focuses back on the engine parts she's rewiring. "Simon and River are going back to their family. It's been a long time since they saw their folks. Can't say I'm terribly sad they get that back."

"You'll miss him though?"

She pauses in her work and looks up at Jayne. "Course I will. Miss them both already. But we gotta go our separate ways sometimes. Don't mean we won't see them again."

"Guess so," he grunts, annoyance sitting funny in his chest. He'd come around to both the doc and his sister in the time they were on the ship, but he still thinks about shooting the doc in his kneecaps occasionally.

Or, well, he thought about it. Won't have to think about it so much any more, what with them gone.

It's a year or more on before they do run into Simon and River again. Mal's arranged a few days' leave for the crew on Persephone after several hard weeks of constant work. Just so happens the Tams are visiting, too.

There's a meeting in a dive bar, a toast to their dead, and talk of the future. It all makes Jayne a mite uncomfortable, the hobnobbing and chitchatting and smiling getting too much. He announces he's gotta take a piss, but he slips out the door instead.

Kaylee finds him smoking a cigar and looking out at the constant flow of people.

"Wondered where you'd gotten," she says, bumping his elbow with her own.

"Needed a smoke."

They stand in silence together, and Jayne puffs at his cigar.

"It ain't quite the same," Kaylee says after a while.

"What ain't?"

"Everything, I guess, but I mean Simon. He's gone back to his life."

"Knew he would, Kaylee."

"I know. They look good, don't they? Happy."

Jayne grunts.

"You got plans for the rest of leave?"

"Just me and my cigar."

"I was thinking about going dancing. River says there's a country dance being held on the outskirts tomorrow night." Kaylee puts her hand on his, squeezes his fingers gentle-like. "Wondered if you might come with us."

Jayne looks down at their intertwined hands and then at Kaylee's sweet face. He takes his cigar out of his mouth to tap off some of the ash. "Might do, if that's what you want."

"It is." She leans up and kisses the corner of his mouth, not even blinking at the cigar taste he knows is there. "Come back inside soon, okay?"

Kaylee slips away, one last smile over her shoulder.

*

Jayne's rules for courting are simple. But sometimes that last one's negotiable.


End file.
